Anyone for a Charleston?

          After another sea day we hit Charleston in South Carolina and as most of the trips seemed overpriced for trips to gardens and plantation related houses we decided to do our own thing, especially as the town itself was so close to the dock anyway.

         For an hour is so before we docked the rain had absolutely hammered it down, but stopped just as the last couple of ropes were being secured from the ship to the harbour. When we were given permission by the captain we set off on the 10 minute walk along the jetty to the port terminal and beyond onto the main road which seperated the port from the town. The roads were basically shallow canals seperating the sidewalks, so we headed left along the sidewalk in the direction of a Pineapple waterfall we had seen advertised next to a small public park both of which we fancied seeing, aparenty the pineapple is a symbol of good fortune in this neck of the woods.

             From here we headed away from the sea aiming to find King Street which if we turned right in it would take us to Market Street, which was our next destination. On our way up to King Street the heavens opened again so we had to take shelter under the veranda of a hotel we were passing with another couple from the ship, who were in the same boat. Even the locals had been caught short by the latest shower walking past us wearing soaked baseball vests.  Even the horses pulling the horse drawn carriage tours looked pissed off. The rain persivered for about 5 minutes, before we decided to go for it, and continue our search our search for King Street, which turned out to be the next street along. 

             For anyone who doesnt kmow me, I don't do much reading, and tend to stick to a couple of authors  that flick my switch, one if them being John Grisham, whose is based around this region of the  US, and his description of the streets were pretty accurate for those of Charleston, being lined by colonial style multi use building , some having tree lined sidewalks. King Street had no trees but had the multi use buildings with businesses utilising the ground floors and doorways dotted between them to the accomodation above. On this part of King Street the businesses were more traditional shops like antique shops, cobblers etc and quit a lot of Attorneys of different kinds of law. I was banking on this being the place to fullfil our next quest, to find  a traditional American Diner, where Perdita was determined to try blueberry pancakes, or some other traditional breakfast fayre. We would however have to wait until we got to Market Street to fullfil that dream, when she ordered cinnamon toast with extra cinnamon butter and a good sized portion of maple  syrup.

         As the name suggests Market Street was the home of the Market, which was housed in a series of halls(maybe 6 in total) and stretched back down to the harbour, all but the 1st one were single floor and had a line of maybe 25 traders down each side of each hall. It wasnt a traditional market no, fruit and veg or provisions here, it was all aimed at tourists. It wasn't the usual tatt but more artisan kind of stuff, and quite a few of the stall holder were making the next one of what ever they had just sold. This is where we managed to find "the shotglass and postcard", according to Perdita if we havent got one "we haven't been there."🤣🤣🤣

           Once we had reached the lower hall we double back up one of the sidestreets which went up each side of the market back to King Street.  The top market hall was the 2 story one and the second floor housed the museum of the civil war, but it didnt open til later in the day. So we headed right further down King Street. At this point King Street changed from here it was  a more conventional high street having more modern fashion outlets from clothes to shoes which suited us, as we set of on our next quest.

           Our youngest son 'Sir' Harrison had turned 21 a couple of days before we left the UK, and is a big fan of basketball and in particular the Charlotte Hornets ( no we had never heard of them either), and as Charlotte is in South Carolina, although quite a distance away, we thought we would try to find something  for him. Although quite a lot of the shops sold generic sporting attire, we really struggled to find a geniune sports shop, until out of despair we asked in a shoe shop, the guy at the counter was sure there was one a couple of blocks further up the street, but didnt know the name. Eventually we spotted it accross the street and to be fair to the guy in the shoe shop, it was a pretty non discript shop, and we could have quite easily walked past it, if we hadn't been searching for it. So we managed to get him a Hornets baseball vest and cap. Happy Birthday 'Sir'Harrison luv mum and dad🥂🎂🥂.

            By now Perdita was getting bladderly challenged, so a restroom was the next quest, so carrying on along King Street she spotted a sign for the coldest beer in town, down an alley after a donut shop. I knew she was desperate when she passed said donut shop without even a glance in the window, and am I glad she was, we stumbled across one if those little gems that can make your holiday, and this was the case for me. If it had been dark, we  proably wouldnt have risked it, but  it was light and she was desperate, we did, and found "Burn Alley" tucked away in a corner. A couple of steps down a steel stairwell, to the door, which desperatley needed a coat of paint and into just what I  had envisaged a backstreet bar to look like (imagine the bar in cayote ugly, just no girls dancing on the bar) , the lights turned right down, little round tables with low backed stools placed around them and a row of low backed stools along the bar, and loads of mirrors and lit displays advertising the beers on offer. It was only about 1.30pm so  we were the only ones in, but in the 45 minutes it took me to drink a couple of beers a few more people started wandering in.

            From there we headed back along King Street to Market Street and back down to the port in time for Rufus to bring us a couple of beers and a purple rain before the boat set off.

Pongo and Perdita signing off